Egon Talorus
|company=Fourth Company |role= |rank= |homeworld= |birth=548.M41 |death= |height=8 feet, 4 inches |hair=Light brown |eyes=Hazel |skin=Fair |cyber= |equipment=*Mark VII Aquila *Master-crafted Mark Vb Godwyn pattern *Mark III *Ingelldina-pattern |battles=*Scionus Crusade *Kalpur Incident *Hurioch Campaign *Nihilicus Crusade **Storming of Felvath *Traechus Purge *Oxidus IX Heresy *Cleansing of the Pollix *Burning of Nilanthius *Severus Crusade *Battle of Vardor VIII *Barusian Crusade *Defiling of the Choraeleus Hold *Desecration of Orphellion III *8th Reclamation of Thraedus *Eneldor Campaign *Reclamation of Pravinius *Siege of Mythrim Primaris *Verdictus Crusade **Doom of Elaris IV **Battle for Helbad **Fall of Evion Secundus **Battle of Grimorum II **Battle of the Cursed Twins *Ulgroth Crusade **Fall of Oseonus III **Fall of Frigoth Primus **Fall of Rhonus IV **Bloodletting of Regnatus II *Liberation of Hafstrom II * *Numerous others |status=Alive as of 015.M42 |affiliation=* ** *** ****Fourth Company *****Second ** *** **** ***** Talorus }} Egon Talorus was a Space Marine Veteran Sergeant who served extensively with the Fourth Company of the Doom Eagles chapter, slaying many great and terrible foes and witnessing unspeakable atrocities that would undoubtedly break the minds of even the mightiest of ordinary men. As a Doom Eagle, he carried the burdens of his post with a quiet, mournful dignity, knowing that it would not only be his fate but that it was his duty to someday die in the fires of battle. Egon's especially fierce dedication to the service of Mankind coupled with his unshakable faith in the Doom Eagles' chapter cult made him a force to be reckoned with. His incredible willpower and desire to become a well-versed and masterful warrior both served to propel him through the ranks of his chapter, so much so that he achieved the distinguished rank of Veteran Sergeant in just under two centuries of service. Biography Early Life Egon Talorus, born Harald Garin, was born on the world of in 548.M41 to a family of lowborn field workers. His father was an abusive alcoholic, notorious in amongst the locals for his unruly behavior, causing Harald and his family to be ostracized by their peers. When he misbehaved, even just slightly, Harald was beaten, usually to the point that the bruises made it uncomfortable to sit or lie down. He typically sought refuge from his father through his mother, however, this only prompted his father to beat her as well. When Harald was six years old, his mother died while giving birth to his sister, Jenivieve. Following this, his father became depressed and even more temperamental, due to a combination of misplaced guilt and sexual deprivation. His father began to hire prostitutes in order to satisfy his urges, and Harald and Jenivieve often had no choice but to listen to their father "use" them, due to the small size of their living quarters. Eventually, however, one prostitute refused to engage in "business" where the man's children could hear them, demanding that he agree to take matters elsewhere. Their father, infuriated, broke an empty liquor bottle and proceeded to threaten her with it, raping the woman before stabbing her to death with the makeshift weapon. Harald was forced to bury the woman's corpse. As rumors spread following the incident (guards unearthed the woman's half-mutilated corpse from a shallow, sloppy grave near the town gates less than a month afterward), escorts began to refuse Harald's father their business, for fear that they too would meet a similarly gruesome fate. Left without an outlet for his desires, their father's rage built up until he finally unleashed it upon Jenivieve, blaming her for his wife's death. Taking a shovel, he bludgeoned and stabbed his own daughter in a fit of blind rage before dousing her in animal fat and burning her to death. Again, Harald was forced to dispose of the remains. With no one else left, Harald once again became the target of choice for his father's wrath. In his despair, Harald turned to drugs (namely ) in order to gain some sliver of joy amidst his bleak life. He quickly became addicted to the substance, requiring ever greater quantities in order to sustain some fleeting sense of happiness. However, when the drug was in full effect, Harald noted that his father's routine beatings became markedly less painful. But when Harald's father discovered that Harald had been stealing money to fund his newfound addiction, he was enraged, resolving to kill the boy. But as his drunken father stumbled over to find a nearby bottle to wield as a weapon, Harald grabbed the shovel that had been used in the killing of his sister and rammed it into his father's gut with all the force he could muster. His father crumpled to the ground, and for the next day or so, Harald would watch his own father slowly die while in a drug-induced stupor, as the helpless man pleaded to his son for help and forgiveness. Harald would then burn down his family home with his father's corpse still inside, taking with him only a few necessities, some food, and, of course, as much Obscura as he could carry. For the next year, Harald lived on the streets of Table City, Gathis II's capital, working as a drug mule for several local dealers. He stole most of what he ate, as he was paid primarily in Obscura. Eventually, however, Harald was no longer satisfied with the amount of Obscura he was given for his drug muling, and unable to work more due to malnourishment taking a harsh toll on his body, he began to take Obscura from the shipments he smuggled through Table City. However, he was quickly caught, and one of the dealers Harald worked for responded to his misbehavior by beating him nearly to death with an iron rod and leaving him for dead. Unable to move or call for help, Harald would've certainly died had he not, to his good fortune, been found by a good samaritan: a widowed woman of higher birth by the name of Eris Letva. She discovered him barely conscious near the waste pits of one of Table City's primitive chamack oil plants, where she worked as a sort of supervisor. Unwilling to allow a child to die, Letva took Harald under her wing, nursing him back to health, a particularly harsh ordeal as Harald began to experience withdrawal midway through his recovery due to prolonged lack of access to Obscura. But by the time he was healed, Harald's withdrawal had ended and he no longer experienced a desire to use the substance. Letva informally adopted Harald as her son, fulfilling a life-long desire of hers that she had long been denied due to infertility. She treated him well, and for the first time since his mother's death, Harald experienced what it was like to be loved. Harald showed great potential, advancing quickly in the simplistic lessons in arithmetic and language that passed as education amongst the Gathian tribes. Letva also introduced Harald to the worship of the great , a magnificent and mighty figure who watched over humanity from the heavens. She also told him of the Emperor's mighty Angels, some of whom resided on Gathis II, watching over the Gathians from high in the perilous slopes of the Ghostmountain, tallest of the mighty Razorpeaks. Unfortunately, Harald's happiness would not last. One day, Harald returned home to see a bizarre sight: , tall, slender, lithe, and clad in armor unlike any Harald had ever seen, were dragging people from their homes. Instinctively, Harald fled upon seeing such a frightening event unfolding, but one of the beings spotted Harald, chasing after him. The being was impossibly quick, and Harald could not hope to outrun it. But just before the creature could catch him, Harald heard a loud splattering sound, and turned to see that his pursuer's cranium had been obliterated, taking a sizable portion of the upper torso with it. As the being's corpse collapsed, Harald could see a massive figure, larger than any human he'd ever seen and wearing silver plate armor trimmed with crimson and ebon, lowering the smoking barrel of a large projectile weapon. Harald slept in the wilderness that night, returning home in the morning to find his hometown a mess. But most troublingly, Eris Letva was nowhere to be found. Harald waited patiently, praying to the God-Emperor that his adoptive mother would return to him, but day after day, night after night, she did not. Eventually, Harald came to accept the horrible truth: that Eris Letva was gone, and he was on his own once more. Selection In 561.M41, on the thirteenth day of the thirteenth lunar month of the year, Harald, like every other thirteen-year-old boy on Gathis II, was brought to Table City aboard a glider, as was required by local Imperial law. They were brought to a large stone building, where they were not visible by the general public. Men began unloading them from the gliders, and started lining them up. Confused, Harald felt someone tap him, gently but quite noticeably, on the shoulder. He looked behind him, but saw no one. Moments later, four men took him by the arms and dragged him away. Harald attempted to escape their grasp, but he began to feel lethargic, and soon lost consciousness. He awoke high up in the Razorpeak Mountains, just outside of a cave. There with him were several other young boys, all the same age. A voice would reach out to them, instructing them to traverse through the cave. The boys would follow the voice's instruction, making their way through increasingly dangerous perils, unaware that this was the first of many tests that would decide whether or not they would be allowed to join the ranks of the Doom Eagles, the Angels who resided in the mountains of Gathis II. The boys swam through near-boiling water, walked across a field of thorns and a path of embers suspended over molten lava, and finally they would drag themselves through hundreds of meters worth of narrow tunnel, with only just enough space for them to be able to pull themselves along with their elbows and forearms just inches at a time. The cave then terminated in a cliff face, a deep chasm standing between the few surviving boys and their apparent destination, an enormous castle carved out of one of the mountain peaks. A number of crude wood and fabric hang gliders were prepared for them, and with the gliders in hand the boys would throw themselves off of the cliff, relying on the strong winds which whipped across the chasm to keep them airborne. For the handful of battered and bloodied young men who managed to cross the chasm successfully, they would be admitted entrance to the stone castle, where they would soon begin their transformation into warriors of the : the Emperor's fabled Angels of Death. Service as a Scout Marine Following his success in the trials, Harald, now known as Egon Talorus to separate him from his past identity, began to undergo his implantation. This process would infuse his body with a tiny fragment of the divine spark that flickered within , thereby transforming him into a mighty Astartes. The implantation would be performed in a number of stages and would thus take years to complete, but in the meantime Talorus would still see action as a of the Chapter's Tenth Company. Under the watchful eye of Scout Sergeant Belicus, Talorus spent his first five years as a Doom Eagle fighting in the Scionus Crusade, against the forces of the Grotpunchaz empire. On the way back to Gathis II following the conclusion of the Scionus Crusade, Scout Squad Belicus was redirected at the request of the Tenth Company Captain to aid a small strike force that had come under attack by while responding to a distress signal involving stolen relics on the of Kalpur. Upon arrival, Egon and the rest of Squad Belicus discovered that the remainder of the Doom Eagles strike force had barricaded themselves within a cathedral, and had gained the assistance of a trio of . The Astartes and Eldar continued to fight for almost two day-night cycles following the arrival of Squad Belicus before finally driving off their Dark Eldar attackers, but not before losing nine more Marines and a single Ranger. Afterwards, the Space Marines and the Eldar seemed to part ways, and the Space Marines began to gather whatever geneseed they could from the mutilated corpses of their dead before going to retrieve the stolen relics the Dark Eldar had seemingly abandoned before making their escape back into the . However, as they were retrieving the relics, the Marines were ambushed by a group of five Eldar Rangers, apparently after a number of that the Dark Eldar had also stolen. The initial ambush killed all but four of the remaining Marines, leaving only two Tactical Marines and two Scout Marines still breathing. Amidst the confusion, Egon managed to steal one of the spirit stones and escape aboard one of several that Squad Belicus had brought with them. Leading the Rangers after him and away from his brothers, Egon intentionally crashed the Land Speeder, leaving both it and the spirit stone for the Rangers to find. As the Rangers searched the wreckage for the stone, Egon remotely detonated a Melta Bomb that he had planted beneath the passenger seat, killing three of the Eldar and leaving the other two mortally wounded. Egon and his three surviving brothers would then destroy all of the spirit stones before returning the sacred Imperial relics. Upon return to Gathis II, Egon was promoted to a full Battle-Brother, and was sent to the Ninth Company for training in the ways of the Devastator Marine. However, the events on Kalpur, combined with his realization that it was in fact the Dark Eldar whom had taken Eris Letva away from Harald Garin, would have a permanent effect on Talorus, fostering within him a special hatred and mistrust for all Eldar that would stay with him for the rest of his life. Trials as a Devastator Marine: The Hurioch Campaign After his promotion, Egon served as a member of the Ninth Company's Third Devastator Squad, Squad Vantius, where he was typically tasked with operating a . Egon found the immense power and incredible accuracy of this terrifying weapon to be quite satisfying, but strongly disliked the slow rate of fire and especially its unwieldiness. Starting in 583.M41, Devastator Squad Vantius was deployed in the Hurioch Campaign, against the greenskin hordes of Stompyfeet. Once again, Egon would display incredible courage, specifically on one occasion prior to which his entire combat squad was killed aside from himself and a single squadmate, Brother Cretalus. Cretalus, although still able to fight, was badly wounded and losing blood fast from a rupture in one of his hearts, while the power cable linking Egon's Lascannon to its power source had been severed by an Ork . Egon discarded his weapon and picked up a Godwyn pattern Bolter from the corpse of a dead Tactical Marine, covering Cretalus' flank as his wounded brother laid down suppressing fire with his . When Cretalus finally lost conciousness, Egon stripped off the destroyed parts of his brother's armor and carried him to safety over his shoulder, but not before rigging his Lascannon's damaged power supply to detonate in order to cover his retreat. For their exceptional bravery and dedication in the service of the Emperor, both Egon and Cretalus were transferred to the Eighth Company in early 584.M41 for training as . Training as an Assault Marine: Nihilicus Crusade & the Storming of Felvath In the Eighth Company, Egon served under the esteemed Veteran Sergeant Valmor Scallius, as a member of the Third Assault Squad. Scallius was an expert practitioner of the Doom Eagles' favored art of jump assault, and was held in high regards as an excellent teacher of his craft, so much so that despite his possession of the , no one in the Chapter objected to Scallius remaining in service to the Eighth Company rather than serving with the Chapter in the First. Egon and the rest of Squad Scallius would see plenty of action while supporting the Fifth Company in subsector Nihilicus, retaking the region from a of the traitorous and their fanatical renegade armies. In 592.M41, the Crusade took Squad Scallius to the of Felvath, where the squad would be deployed amongst several others as shock troops to weaken the hostile defenses and break enemy morale in advance of an assault by the bulk of the Fifth Company. Unfortunately, aware of the coming attack, a and his cabal of warriors were waiting when the assault force made planetfall. Short work was made of the cultist and renegade fodder supporting the , but the seasoned Chosen veterans dealt considerable casualties upon the comparatively inexperienced Loyalists. Sergeant Scallius was wounded in the fight, his sword arm severed but still fighting with his and . Meanwhile, Egon slew two Chosen, but a third tore his from his hands and crushed it beneath the grasp of a . Taking up his Sergeant's discarded power sword, Egon fought on, killing the Traitor Marine responsible for the destruction of his previous weapon before also slaying a fourth Word Bearer. However, it was then that the Dark Apostle himself entered the fray, engaging Egon in close combat. Egon was quickly overpowered, and his sword was knocked from his hands. Egon then tackled the Dark Apostle, and as he kept his foe occupied by attempting to wrestle away his , Egon pulled out his and buried it in the Traitor's neck. Stunned by the loss of their leader, the Chosen retreated, ending the bitter fight, and the Fifth Company's attack was able to commence. Thoroughly impressed with Egon's actions, upon return from the Nihilicus Crusade in 593.M41, Sergeant Scallius had Egon sent off to the Sixth Company, for training as a Tactical Marine. Service as a Tactical Marine: The Sixth Company It would be in the Sixth Company, under Sergeant Hydrik Cortellus of the Fifth Tactical Squad that Talorus truly found his niche. Not only did the tactical flexibility required of a Tactical Marine come easy to Egon, but he found it liberating. The blade and the boltgun were truly the weapons that Egon was fated to wield. His first campaign as part of the Sixth Company would be in aiding captain Diominus Feldon's Fourth Company in the extermination of a minor xenos race known as the Traev, native to the Traechus Star System. Despite being wholly incapable of faster-than-light travel, the Traev were highly advanced, with devastating plasma-based void weaponry and sophisticated personal protection equipment on the ground. Personality & Traits Egon was a disciplined, focused warrior, quiet in demeanor and grim in his outlook. A realist, Egon was brutally honest and unapologetically forward with the truth, preferring to keep talk short and to the point. Yet in spite of his less-than-welcoming personality, Egon managed to forge strong alliances with all manner of people, from fellow Astartes to lowly peasants, for beneath his icily stoic exterior laid bountiful courage, loyalty, and compassion. Egon was dependable, steadfast, and true to his word, being calm under pressure, willing to take risks and make sacrifices, and above all, dedicated to preserving the lives of those around him, even at the risk of his own. Unlike many Space Marines, Egon did not see normal humans as useless or wholly inferior; throughout his years of service Egon met ordinary men of great courage and character, from mere peasants to the mightiest of . However, not all men were so brave or honest, but fortunately Egon possessed a keen sense of justice which he used to keep the cowardly and the untrustworthy in their place. Aware of his lowly origins, Egon was often sympathetic towards the plights of common Imperial citizens, and critical of those of higher birth who mistreated or exploited those below them. As a result, Egon's superiors were sometimes wary of sending him into situations where interaction with Imperial nobility was a necessity. Physical Appearance Egon's body was somewhat strange in appearance. Without a terrible amount of observation it was clear that his frame was not originally meant to accommodate such a huge form, and that his once lithe body had been artificially altered to support the immense amount of added muscle mass and the various Astartes implants. Like most Space Marines, his relatively normal-sized head seemed disproportionately small compared to his otherwise massive body. Egon possessed an unusual amount of hair for a Space Marine, preferring to keep it around two inches in length, though he periodically shaved it. He typical kept himself clean-shaven, though he did sometimes sport five o'clock shadow instead. Wargear *'Mark VII Aquila Power Armor' *'Master-Crafted Mark Vb Godwyn pattern Bolter' Talorus' favorite ranged weapon was the signature weapon of the Adeptus Astartes, the Godwyn-pattern Boltgun. Egon's Bolter, however, was specially hand-crafted just for him, using parts from his original bolter, which was destroyed during the Severus Crusade. Like most Godwyn pattern Boltguns, Egon's Bolter sported a built-in ammunition counter, Sinister/Dexter locking mechanism, and a palm-print genetic sensor. But in addition to these features, Egon's Bolter included support for semi-automatic, four-round burst, and fully automatic firing modes, and the weapon was tuned specifically to the autosenses of Egon's armor, significantly increasing its effectiveness in his hands. Holy scripture was also painstakingly inscribed into the weapon's casing, appeasing the weapon's and further augmenting its accuracy and killing power. *'Mark III Bolt Pistol' The standard sidearm of the Adeptus Astartes, Talorus used his Bolt Pistol as a fallback ranged weapon. *'Ingelldina pattern power sword' Gifted to Egon by Diominus Feldon shortly after he was promoted to Sergeant, Egon's sword was his weapon of choice for close-range fighting. Inscribed into the blade in flowing, spidery script was the phrase " ", a line from an ancient -era tome sacred to the Doom Eagles Chapter. Trivia *The Imperial was tattooed on the left side of Egon's neck. Egon also possessed a small Aquila charm, which he kept chained to his right vambrace. During prayer, he would often remove the charm from its chain and hold it against his chest. This charm was selected to be his artifact of death, to be housed within a great obsidian slab within the Hall of the Fallen on Gathis II when Egon met his ultimate fate on the battlefield. *From 990.M41 to 992.M41, Egon kept a mouse named Gabriel as a pet after he discovered the animal orphaned following the Liberation of Hafstrom II. He hand-raised and weaned the creature on the trip back to Gathis II, where he kept it in a glass case in his quarters at The Eyrie for two years until its death. *Like the majority of Doom Eagles, Egon was exceptionally skilled in the use of , even despite the fact that he was not an Assault Marine. This was best seen during the Eneldor Campaign, when he and his squad donned jump packs in order to reach Ork anti-air guns atop Manufactorum Mendrachis. *In the Alfa Legion continuity, Egon's storyline diverges from that of Imperium of Blood in 999.M41, when Egon is thought to be killed during the 13th Black Crusade. He is consequently left stranded on the of when the rest of his chapter returns to Gathis II after Abaddon the Despoiler's forces are repelled. Sent into a state of spiraling depression by the fact that his own Brothers left him behind, Egon roams the fringes of Imperial space for roughly a decade, taking high-profile mercenary contracts from various planetary governors and warlords. However, in 010.M42, Egon finds his way to the world of Swedesia, discovering the world to be home to the Alfa Legion, an extremely bizarre chapter of Space Marines accepting non-Astartes, heretics, and even xenos into its ranks. Eager to rejoin the ranks of the Adeptus Astartes, Egon joins the Alfa Legion, eventually becoming a Tactical Marine of the chapter's Second Company. Category:Featured Articles Category:Imperial Characters Category:Doom Eagles